War is too expensive

Letter to the editor

Posted: Sunday, April 10, 2005

Thank you, Jonathan Anderson, for your letter on March 23, bringing to our attention the mounting costs of war, costs we seldom read about. In addition to the over 1,500 U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq, more than 10,000 U.S. soldiers have come home wounded and over 100,000 have returned in need of mental health care. The numbers grow with each passing day. This does not take into account over 15,000 of Iraqi dead and who knows how many wounded. I am a Christian who believes that when Jesus talked about loving our enemies he didn't have in mind killing them, either accidentally or intentionally.

The average monthly cost of the Iraq war is $5.8 billion, a sum that staggers the imagination. This in a world where an untold number of people die every day from malnutrition, AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, lack of any kind of health care and everything else we deem to be the necessities of life. In our own country, the $151 billion already allocated for the war could have been used for housing vouchers for 23 million families or health care for 27 million uninsured Americans or 3 million new elementary school teachers.

This misuse of our incredible wealth makes all our talk about "moral values" seem hypocritical and hollow. Support our troops; bring them home.